Al Mohler is Wrong: Ayn Rand, Libertarianism, and Rothbard’s Law

In addition to being an unparalleled libertarian scholar and theorist, Murray Rothbard also gave us “Rothbard’s Law“:
[pullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]People tend to specialize in what they are worst at. For example, Henry George is great on everything but land, so therefore he writes about land 90% of the time. [Milton] Friedman is great except on money, so he concentrates on money. [/pullquote]

A tongue-in-cheek observation, obviously. But it’s as good a theory as any to explain why Al Mohler is considered an expert critic on libertarian politics by Evangelicals.

The panel was hosted by Todd Friel of Wretched Radio, who raised the question of libertarianism. Everyone deferred to Al Mohler as the de facto “expert” on the panel:

I won’t spend time on an in-depth response to this video. That has been done admirably by C.Jay Engel and Ben Lewis.

I would only draw attention to Mohler’s statement that “the ideological basis for libertarianism…. is Ayn Rand and Randian individualism.”

Hold that thought.

Then, on March 5th, 2016, Dr. Mohler appeared on a radio show alongside Dr. Norman Horn, of the Libertarian Christians website. They had a brief debate on libertarianism and Christianity hosted by Julie Roys.

While Mohler makes several erroneous assertions in this debate, of particular interest are his comments at the 17:20 mark:

[pullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]You can go and find the average person who identifies as libertarian, and they will identify it as a freedom from all moral restraints….This is what libertarianism has not been able to shake since the 1950s with Randianism and Objectivism and all the rest. This is how it really came to the forefront of the American political debate, It hasn’t been able to shake the fact that its primary impetus is the exaltation of the ego.[/pullquote]

In both these examples, Mohler asserts that libertarianism is rooted in Randian philosophy.

Mohler never explains how he reached this conclusion; but whether through careless study or through naive assumption, Al Mohler is demonstrably wrong about this.

True, Ayn Rand, and her seminal work Atlas Shrugged, has had a clear influence on the modern libertarian movement. Yet there are a multitude of non-Randians who have had at least as much influence. (You can find a list of 10 of them here: “Ten Leading Lights of Libertarianism (Who Aren’t Ayn Rand)”).

So why does Al Mohler fixate on Ayn Rand? Because he knows little, if anything, about libertarianism.

When listening to Mohler speak about libertarian philosophy, one isn’t left with the impression that he has studied it in detail. Nor indeed that he has read any libertarian philosophy at all.

Rather, one gets the impression that Mohler has borrowed a few talking points about libertarianism from Salon:

Two can play at that game. I can just as easily show that Mohler himself follows Ayn Rand:

Ayn Rand believed that reality and truth were objective and absolute . Al Mohler also believes that reality and truth are objective and absolute. Therefore, Al Mohler’s philosophy is based on Ayn Rand.

Silly, no? Yet that’s the sort of argument Mohler is making against libertarianism. Frankly, logic this facile is well beneath a scholar of Mohler’s repute.

Yet, this line of argument isn’t surprising considering the sources Mohler is apparently using.

He mentions Ayn Rand and a couple points of her philosophy — points which are not particularly relevant to libertarian political thought. He does not, however, reference any particular book of Rand’s that he has read. Nor does he reference any other libertarian scholar.

So how does he know that it is Ayn Rand and Objectivism which is the intellectual engine of libertarianism?

Refer again to the piece I quoted from the Mohler-Horn debate:

[pullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]You can go and find the average person who identifies as libertarian …[/pullquote]

There you have it. Al Mohler is an expert in libertarian thought because he has listened to “the libertarian on the street.” Is Mohler speaking as a beat reporter or as a scholar?

To paraphrase another quote from Rothbard: it is no crime to be ignorant of libertarianism, which is a heterodox set of political ideals. But it totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on the subject while remaining in this state of ignorance.

If Al Mohler rejects libertarianism, that is his prerogative. But before doing so, it behooves him to actually know something about it.

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